The present invention relates to a monitor device for use in computers.
Usually, a desktop or any other stationary type computer is equipped with an easy-to-look-at large monitor device and easy-to-handle input devices such as a keyboard and a Monte. On the other hand, a laptop or palm-top portable computer is designed with a view to reducing the size and weight of the unit, with use of input devices such as a small keyboard and a pointing device, whose handling ease is sacrificed for size and weight reduction, and with a less easy-to-look-at small monitor, all integrated into the computer.
A monitor device provided on a stationary computer can receive no more than one image input at a time. As a result, if a monitor device used for displaying output display images for a computer is to be used for displaying the output display images for another computer, the connection between the monitor device and the computer needs to be rewired. Or else, the connection between the monitor device and the computer needs to be switched over with a separately provided selector or the like. This is also true of input devices. If an input device used for inputting information to a computer is to be used for inputting to another computer, the connection between the input device and the computer needs to be rewired. Or else, the connection between the input device and the computer needs to be switched over with the use of a separately provided selector or the like.
Sometimes one user may want to use a plurality of computers at the same time. In such a case, however, as input devices and monitor devices are separately provided for different computers, the user should use a different input device or look at a different monitor device for each computer. Especially where one computer is a laptop computer and another is a stationary computer, in spite of the presence in the same location of a better visible monitor device and a better operable input device provided for the stationary computer, the monitor and input device which is inferior in visibility and operability provided for the laptop computer should be used when that laptop unit is to be operated.
Thus, it is possible to use a monitor device and input device provided for one computer in the operation of another computer, but only by either rewiring the connections of the monitor device and input device to the computer or by providing and operating separate selector switches.
However, even in such an arrangement, the image displayed on the monitor device at a given time is the output display image of only one computer, and, accordingly, the user cannot check the output display images of a plurality of computers at the same time. Moreover, where the computer to be operated is changed frequently, the user has to leave the input device he or she is operating and rewire the input and monitor devices or to manipulate the separately provided switches every time the computer is changed.
An object of the present invention is to provide a monitor device which is capable of displaying output display images of a plurality of computers at the same time.
Another object of the invention is to enable the user to use, without having to leave a specific input device, that specific input device and a specific monitor device as the monitor device and input device of a plurality of computers.
In order to achieve the above-stated objects, a monitor device according to the present invention comprises a plurality of display data interfacing units for entering display data from individual computers; a plurality of communication data interfacing units for inputting/outputting communication data between the individual computers; a superposed display unit for superposed display of two or more images represented by display data entered into two or more of the display data interfacing units; and a display controller for altering the form of the superposed display on the basis of communication data for instructing alteration of the form of the superposed display, which communication data is supplied to the communication data interfacing units.
Such a monitor device can display output display images from a plurality of computers at the same time. Moreover, the capability to alter the form of a superposed display on the monitor device from the computers enables the monitor device to adapt the display to the contents desired to be checked, and, accordingly, the monitor device can be used in practice as the monitor device for a plurality of computers.
If this monitor device is equipped with one or more input data interfacing units for entering input data from an input device, and an input data repeater for supplying, from one communication data interfacing unit to be dynamically selected out of the plurality of communication data interfacing units, input data to be entered into a computer which has entered inputs into the input data interfacing unit(s) to the computer carrying out inputting/outputting from/to this communication data interfacing unit, a specific input device can be used as the input device for a plurality of computers.